Kennesaw State will join the Big South Conference as a football-only member beginning in 2015, a university source confirmed Tuesday to the Journal.

The date coincides with the kickoff of the Owls’ football program as a member of the Football Championship Subdivision.

Kennesaw State will retain its membership for all other sports in the Atlantic Sun Conference, which does not sponsor football.

A news conference announcing the university’s affiliation with the Big South was scheduled for today at Fifth-Third Bank Stadium.

Earlier this summer, Kennesaw State athletic director Vaughn Williams said remaining a member of the A-Sun, and becoming an associate member in another conference for football, would be the optimal situation for the Owls.

“The conference will probably find me before I find it,” Williams said at the time. “A lot of discussion is happening. It has happened in the last couple of weeks. A lot of the FCS conferences and mid-majors are deciding which direction they are going to go. Our job is to make sure we are the topic of discussion.

“We’re just looking for a place to play football.”

Messages left for Williams and Big South spokesman Mark Simpson were not returned.

Kennesaw State will give the Big South seven football-playing members. The Owls will be the western-most team of the conference spread largely among Virginia and the Carolinas.

Currently, the conference includes Charleston Southern, Coastal Carolina, Gardner-Webb, Liberty, Presbyterian and VMI. Presbyterian will be the Owls’ closest rival, its campus three hours east in Clinton, S.C.

VMI, a full member, will leave the Big South for the Southern Conference after the 2013-14 athletic year and will be replaced by Monmouth — a New Jersey college about an hour south of New York — as a football-only member for the fall of 2014.

Big South member Campbell also plays football, but it is part of the non-scholarship Pioneer League.

With the announcement of the conference affiliation, Williams and Kennesaw State coach Brian Bohannon can concentrate on completing the team’s schedules for 2015 and ’16 seasons, and continue to aggressively pursue members for the Owls’ first recruiting class, which will be signed next February.

Kennesaw State currently has six known commitments, and Bohannon has said he wants to sign between 25 and 30 players on National Signing Day.

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